


You're Not a Constant Star

by Kaname



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Infidelity, M/M, Manipulation, Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-25 06:35:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6184444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaname/pseuds/Kaname
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i> Louis isn’t bitter. He’s not.</i>
</p><p>  <i>But two divorces, ten years as a jaded romance novelist, and a baby that wasn’t his has made it really hard to let the idealistic, gullible kid that served him his overpriced coffee continue believing in the world’s most successful marketing scheme.</i></p><p>  <i>Love doesn’t exist. And Louis’ going to prove it. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	You're Not a Constant Star

**Author's Note:**

> The Emotional Abuse and Infidelity is not between Harry and Louis, but it will be a key point later on in the story. For those triggered by it, there with be a note at the beginning of the chapter for when it appears.
> 
> Title is from Fool's Gold by One Direction

**** "I told you, Louis, the deadline is solid. There’s no wiggle room. Not even  _ I _ can get you out of this.”

Louis sighs, pressing his fingers firmly to his temples and pushing the empty manila folder - labelled ‘DRAFT’ in angry, pointed black letters - roughly from his desk. It twirls and swoops all the way down to its resting place beside his tattered maroon converse. “Niall, I can’t just force it to happen. Novels don’t write  _ themselves. _ ”

“No, novelists write novels. I was under the impression that you were one.”

“And I was under the impression that literary agents do their best to help their clients, but we’re all wrong,  _ sometimes _ ,” Louis hisses, plucking his glasses from his face and tossing them half-assedly beside the corded phone. They make an admirably loud clatter. “Care to do your job, Nialler?”

Niall laughs, loud and full and so, so  _ Irish.  _ “Care to do yours?”

Louis throws his legs up over the lip of the desk, crossing his ankles and plucking a cigarette from his front jacket pocket. He snags it between his teeth and lights it with his free hand. “I don’t think I appreciate your tone. Besides, I am doing my job. I’m just not doing it on Simon motherfucking Cowell’s timetable.”

“He has a business to run, Louis. He’s not your nanny, he’s not going to cater to your biweekly tantrums.”

Louis coughs and tips his ash into a ceramic ashtray precariously perched on the edge of his worktable. “And I’m not his slave, but you know he sure whips me like one. We could do this all day, if you’d like. Or you can tell me what my worst case scenario is.”

The sound of Niall shuffling through his stacks of crumpled papers is unmistakable, even through the vintage static of his ivory telephone. “I’m thinking you could probably stretch it to a week past the proposed deadline in this memo - so, we’re talking...January 21st? 24th, at the absolute latest, and at your own peril.”

Louis grins into the phone’s receiver. January? January he might be able to swing. “You’re aces, Nialler. I’ll get it to you, you know I will. Another bestseller, just like that.”

He can practically hear Niall rolling his eyes on the other side of the line. “The sad part is, I know you will. You’ll just give me grey hair in the process, you twat.”

Louis takes another drag, eyes flickering down to the tented tan folder lying on his carpet. “That’s why I pay you the big bucks. I’ll get started, yeah? Ease your fragile little Irish mind a bit.”

“How you gonna do that, Tommo?” 

He pulls a scrunched up advertisement from the pocket opposite his cigarettes. “I think I know just the ticket.”

 

*****

 

Minutes after Louis hangs up on Niall, he wanders from his flat, sleep-soft and smelling like old tobacco, down a damp and bustling Oxford. 

It’s fifteen minutes, ten minutes longer than it should have been, before he finally finds the hole-in-the-wall cafe from the advert, sitting nestled in between a record store and a resale shop. There’s an  _ OPEN  _ sign glued to the door, lit in bright neon green, the letters crooked and blinking. 

The windows are plastered with handmade posters for bands, odd jobs and small art shows in the suburbs. Louis pauses briefly outside the dirty glass, peering past the hipster paper-mache, just barely able to make out the bustle of activity behind the layered pastel paper.

He takes a deep breath and goes inside. 

It isn’t very crowded, and there’s no line leading up to the register. A younger barista, probably in the his late teens if his wobbly voice is any indication, is running the register with all the enthusiasm of the undead. He looks every inch the classic high-end  _ ‘artiste’ _ arsehole, and Louis already feels vaguely irritated, the thought of gracing this idiot with the blessing of his sharp conversation almost too much for his cultured mind to bear.

“How can I help you today?” The cashier asks listlessly, barely making eye contact. As though the very job of taking orders and brewing coffee in an empty cafe is actually difficult in the fucking least.

“I’d like a coffee,” Louis says, shoving his hands in his pockets and fishing out his thick wallet.

The cashier’s brow raises a judgemental millimeter, like Louis’ said something verging on the blasphemous. “What kind of ‘ _ coffee’  _ would you like?”

What  _ kind?  _ Louis doesn’t want a  mocha frappucino with the souls of the innocent crafted into a gentle white cream; he wants a goddamn  _ coffee _ . Is that too much to ask for? 

“A hot one,” he says, in lieu of complaining. 

“Would you like that to be Ethiopian dark roast? A blonde roast? Or perhaps you’d like an Americano? Any flavor shots or sweetener?”

If Louis didn’t know better, he’d think Ashton Kutcher was moments away from jumping out from beneath the countertop with a camera crew and a face ripe for the punching. 

Does Louis look like the type of person who wants added flavors, or even knows the difference between roasts? 

No, he doesn’t. 

He looks like the cranky old man he is.

“Surprise me.” 

It’s not the answer the barista is looking for, and he knows it. There’s a clench in his jaw where Louis suspects the boy’s grinding his teeth.“Can I get a name for the order, sir?” 

“Louis. Tomlinson,” he adds, with a coy curl of his mouth. He’s not famous, per se, but having seven consecutive top sellers since this kid left grade school is bound to give him  _ some  _ brand recognition. 

There’s a loud crash in the back, behind a set of elaborately carved wooden paneled doors. The cashier pointedly ignores it and settles Louis with an insipid look. “Well, Mr.  _ Tomlinson _ , if you’d please take a seat. We’ll bring your coffee out to you when it’s ready. We’re quite busy, of course; it’s not good service to keep you waiting up front.”

Louis turns around, eyes settling on only one other customer, who’s still gawping at the menu. But he agrees anyway, shuffling off to take a seat in the back.

While he waits, maybe he can finally start on that novel.

 

*****

 

Louis must sit there for ages, idly flipping through substanceless webpages on his laptop, a blank document up in the background but still completely, infuriatingly untouched. His hands are completely swallowed by his grey hoodie, the only sign he has them at all is the periodic  _ tap tap tap  _ of his fingers on the keyboard. 

With how long this is taking, his coffee better be the best fucking thing to grace his lips since that model he’d bedded half a year ago in a drunken haze of sticky sweat and raspberry lube. The last thing he needs is subpar bean water  _ and  _ a questionable commitment to this upcoming bestseller. 

“Louis? Louis Tomlinson?” A deep, reverent voice asks, and Louis blinks for a split second before turning his head to identify the source.

It’s a man, no, a  _ boy,  _ wearing a tight black Henley and a green apron. His long, spindly legs go a mile past the edge of the table, and he’s looking at Louis like he’s made of star-stuff. His brown hair is pulled up into a haphazard bun atop his head, one curl loose and brushing his cheek.“Your coffee!” He squeaks suddenly, setting it beside Louis’ hand with uncharacteristic poise. “Caffe Americano. Lightly sweetened. There’s extra sugar. On the table. If you’d like.”

“Thanks,” Louis says, brusquely, then turns back to his computer without another word. 

When Louis peers at the case of baked goods several minutes later, his stomach loudly rumbling, there are no doe-like eyes staring back at him with the unbridled adoration of the young and naive, just empty air and an old woman puttering to the restroom.

He’s just begun to consider getting an overpriced blueberry muffin from the pretentious fucking hipster kid at the counter when back comes Bambi and his stupidly tight dark-wash jeans. 

Kid’s got a wide smile pasted on his face, a tan, leather messenger bag slung over one shoulder and a black beanie pulled down over his now-loose curls. Poised in one enormous hand is a tantalizing piece of angel food cake, a dollop of handmade whipped cream and a drizzle of blueberry sauce artistically added over the top. In the other is a book, dog-eared to hell and back.

He sweeps over to Louis’ table, setting the plate down with a flourish. 

Louis glances down at the plate, and then back up at the boy. “I didn’t order anything.” He says blandly, less concerned with the idolization sparkling in the boy’s eyes than he probably should be. 

The boy blinks, then that smile breaks back across his face. “It’s free! You know, a pun? ‘Hey, Angel. Do you look at us and laugh, when we hold on to the past?’ It’s angel food cake.”

Louis tentatively grabs the fork beside his empty cup and takes an enormous bite. “What kind of saccharine bullshit is that?” He asks through a mouthful of free cake.

His cake-bearer frowns, pointing at the book in his left hand. “It’s, uh…  _ your _ saccharine bullshit? It was the first line from your book.”

Louis blinks, then takes another bite of cake. “You actually believe that drivel? I wrote that when I was twenty-three and naive as all hell.”

The boy stares at him stupidly, setting the book down beside Louis’ plate and sitting in the chair across from him. “Of course. Everybody deserves a happily ever after, Mr. Tomlinson. I thought that was what your books were about.”

Louis rolls his eyes, stabbing a stray blueberry blandly with his fork. “Yeah, well, not everyone gets one, kid. The sooner you learn that, the less disappointed you’ll be. I’ve matured a lot since those maudlin stories of love and trust. I hardly subscribe to that kind of nonsense now.”

His visitor worries his lip between his teeth, and Louis finally sets his silverware down, grabbing the book that he’d slid across the table. “How long have you had this copy? It’s yellowing.” He asks, thumbing through the pages and stopping on the dedication.

“Since I was seventeen,” the boy admits, looking down at his hands. “It takes place in my hometown. I always thought that was neat. Made me and my mum feel special, to be living in a place from a book like yours.”

_ Harry, It’s  _ _ not _ _ too much to ask for Something Great. -LWT _

“I signed it?” Louis says, reading his younger self’s elegant swirl again, more slowly this time. It’s startlingly different from his more recent chicken scratch, gentle and winding. It obviously took some time to write. “God, I was so full of shite back then. This is embarrassing.”

Harry’s head snaps up. “Don’t say that!” He snarls, grabbing his tattered paperback from Louis’ hands. “You’re nothing at all like I imagined after I met you back then,” he says, then smooths out the fading cover tenderly. “I thought you’d be a kindred soul. Someone like me, you know? Someone who believed that love conquered all. But you’re not like that at all.”

Louis gives him a cheeky grin. “Better to have your hero complexes broken than sustained. Idolizing the rich and famous isn’t healthy.” He gently nudges his plate towards Harry, propping his head in his hands. “Thanks for the cake, kid.”

Harry frowns again, then stands abruptly and swings his bag back over his shoulder, tucking the book into the front pocket. “Have a good night, Mr. Tomlinson,” he deadpans, then strides from the cafe.   
  


*****

 

One would not be remiss to say that, in the five years since his divorce from Briana, Louis Tomlinson has become...bitter. 

In the strictest sense, at least. Were he to write his own character, pen to God, the fictional Louis would be an angry, hateful, and, with alarming regularity, downright acidic old man for reasons that bordered on the absurd.

He’s honest, if nothing else.

Oh, he has his good days. The days worthy of a canned smile and casual bopping around the office, filled with the kind of cautious optimism that lands him a free cookie from the building’s elderly secretary, Mrs. McComb, and the occasional distracted smile from Niall.

But, to be perfectly blunt, today is not one of those days.

Something about that walking, talking Cabbage Patch Kid has him so heated, so on edge, so fucking  _ livid _ . Because God forbid Louis be frank when it come to the disheartening truth of ‘love.’  God forbid Louis try to save him a lifetime of heartbreak and disappointment.

He had to be young; looked a bit like the fundamentally hippie-esque spirit of the 1970s shoved tits first into the body of a modern day hipster Adonis. Harry was too wide-eyed and hopeful about things the world couldn’t promise to be the stereotypical millennial. 

Even in the five minutes of stunted conversation they’d managed to have, one look at that open body language, the leather bracelet on his delicate wrist - inscribed nauseatingly with the word  _ ‘Love’  _ \- and the dog-earred shitshow Louis was ashamed to call his first novel, he could read him like an open book. 

Hell, he could  _ write _ that book. 

A gullible romantic, thinking he had the complexities of life pinned down and perfectly solved. Stupidly fumbling through life without a care, when the reality was that he was living in house of cards just waiting to tumble. 

The book would sell itself. 

Which is exactly what Louis’ thinking as he sits lithely down at his desk and pulls up the blank document he’d been staring at since weeks before Niall’s terse phone call. 

He lets the dark-lit room and the resentment in his blood fuel his writing. 

_ “Harry is, without a doubt, the most overly-enthusiastic, idealistic, naive  _ **_child_ ** _ that he’s ever had the grave misfortune of meeting.  _

_ He’s one of those “free-love” types - at least, if the haphazard man-bun is any indication. A flighty, impermanent fixture in towns and lives, living out of cases - packing up, and taking off - like a damp leaf in the autumn wind. _

_ And he had to be in the one cafe Louis chose to go to. _

_ Louis’ not ready to deal with the unread before his daily dose of whisky. _

_ Which isn’t to say he’s bitter, he’s just... _

_ He really wants a coffee, not a fan. _

_ What gets him, what really, really gets him, is that this kid has the same bizarre, misguided, unworldly notion about true love as his younger self. The same delusion that soulmates are the stuff of reality , rather than the stuff of childhood dreams; and even knowing his own past, he’s unsure he’s ever met someone more determined to believe in a Hallmark sponsored delusion.” _

 

*****

 

Louis hasn’t got many friends. 

Which wouldn’t surprise anyone, really, but he likes to pretend it would.

When he first started writing, he had them. Friends, that is. People from his hometown and college that stuck with him through the mayhem and the deadlines and the biweekly, red-eyed meltdowns. 

Then, of course, there were the temporary people. The people that were attracted to the fame, like flies to honey or cats to trouble. Arm candy, money-grabbers, distant family with a birth certificate and a dream.

It was nice, back then, to have so many people rooting for his success and thriving off of his attention. But after a while, after Eleanor and Briana, after the heartbreak and the melodrama and the binge-drinking in grungy pubs, when his writing began to get jaded and bitter, those friends slowly died off.

It wasn’t intentional, Louis doesn’t think. It didn’t happen out of malice, or tragedy, or hatred. 

It just so happened that as everybody grew older, that their lives went in different directions. 

And, perhaps, that was what made it hurt more.

He was forgettable. 

Even surrounded by his success.

One of his oldest friends, his best friends, his  _ only  _ friends, now, was Liam.

Louis had met Liam in his second year of Uni. They both had enough talent to be on the football team, but weren’t good enough to be anything other than benchwarmers. They’d put everything they had into a game they couldn’t win, and by the end of it all, it was clear to everyone that they were football enthusiasts more than serious athletes.

At the beginning, when Louis thought that football was his true passion, he was something beyond disheartened to find out he’d never quite have what it took to go pro. Liam was there for him, though; listening to him wax poetic about the gross unfairness of it all - about the imminent ending of his young, passionate life.

Consequently, in light of his midnight monologues about all sorts of mundane things, it was Liam that suggested Louis be a writer. 

When Louis made it big - writing  _ romance novels _ for fuck’s sake - Liam was right next to him, supporting his every decision, but knocking him down when his ego got too big. 

And when everybody started taking off, leaving him in unintentional exile, Liam stayed. Liam was there, his roots deep at the core of who Louis was. They even moved in together after Louis’ second divorce. 

Liam’s always been Louis’ cheerleader of sorts, standing behind him and encouraging the extra mile. Even when he fell in love with Sophia and moved to the bloody suburbs, he remained Louis’ go-to guy for anything and everything. 

_ Everything. _

Which is why, an entire ten days after that fateful day in which Louis got even an  _ essence  _ of his inspiration back, Louis finds himself dialing Liam’s number. 

“I’m dying,” Louis drawls into the phone, in lieu of a greeting, and without even a trace of irony.

Liam sighs on the other end, low and resigned. “What is it this time, Louis?”

Louis lights a cigarette. The flick of the marbled lighter in his long fingers is practiced and smooth. 

Yeah, yeah, it’s bad for for him, he knows. 

But so is the stress that accompanies trying to quit.

Again. 

“I haven’t written a word in three days and Niall’s up my arse about it. Remind me why I hired him?”

“He’s the best agent in the business. And the only one that would work with you and your legendary temper.”

“Right.”

Liam sounds terse. “Lou, Sophia and I are about to go to the baker’s. Can you please get to the point? It’s the middle of the day, shouldn’t you be...I don’t know, busy?”

“I’m trying to be! But  _ nothing  _ is working! I need you to help me brainstorm.” Louis is not whiny. There is absolutely no whining to see here. None.

He’s just being...persuasive.

“Have you tried doing the last thing that worked? What got you writing a few days ago? Do that again.” Louis hears rustling. “Shite! I missed the mailman, Sophia is going to  _ kill  _ me for not getting these invitations out -”

“Liam!” Louis says, taking another drag. “I can’t just  _ do  _ what I did three days ago, that’s the  _ problem. _ ”

“Well I don’t see why not!” Liam snaps, coughing one, two, three times and clearing his throat. “Look, I really need to go, Lou. Please just do whatever you did. You always get it done somehow, I know you will. Sorry for being cross.” 

Liam hangs up.

Louis puts his cigarette out.

Overall, it’s a bit of a wash.

 

*****

 

Louis hates himself for being here.

Hates that his career is hinging on him observing some bright-eyed child with more cake than sense. Hates that the fucker at the counter still can’t give him a fucking normal-arse black  _ coffee. _

Hates that he’s actually not hating it, that much.

If he’s being quite honest - which, on the whole, he usually is - the cafe isn’t...intolerable. Sure, the draft from the seldomly opened door is a bit uncomfortable, and he really didn’t need vanilla flavoring in his coffee (really, seriously, he does not); but it’s clean, and it’s generally quite warm, and Harry, if Louis ignores all his petty side-glances and subtle frowning, is pretty easy on the eyes.

Not on the brain.

But on the eyes, for sure.

It’s not as though he needs Harry to  _ talk,  _ anyway. Shallow as a puddle, that one. He’s there for his mannerisms - the practiced way Harry frosts the pumpkin cake, then manages to get the lace of his boot caught in a cabinet handle. The yin and yang of graceful and graceless. It’s really a bit of an art form, and it’ll be aces for character building.

And what’ll Harry care? No matter how he’s written, he’s being cherry-picked from his dead-end job and thrust into a bestselling novel by his favorite author. Or, former favorite author. Regardless, it’s an honor for average folk.

If you think about it, Louis’ really doing Harry a bit of a favor.

That’s what he tells himself, at least.

 

*****

 

It’s not until he he has a substantial stack - really more of a  _ ream  _ \- of paper, every page a veritable treasure chest of mannerisms and conversations, precise transcripts of his every visit to the cafe, that he decides it’s time to call Niall.

As much as it kills him to say it, and it bloody  _ tears him up,  _ Liam was...probably right. 

Watching Harry has given Louis this incorrigible impulse to document his every move. Every interaction with a customer, every flick of the wrist or roll of his ankle, his clumsy gait, his wild eyes, that stupidly, charmingly disarming smile: it’s all there, resting in Louis’ chicken scratch notes, waiting to become a story. 

Well, he’ll probably take the lists of hateful adjectives out first, but it’ll get there.

He digresses. 

Three minutes, six insults, and one threat of violence later, him and Niall have lunch plans for the cafe.

Louis puts on a nice jumper this time, instead of the ratty t-shirts he’s been wearing to get his too-fancy coffee. He figures Niall will take him more seriously if he can’t see his armpits through the holes in his sleeves - and it’s not like the plush cashmere of his navy cardigan is uncomfortable by any stretch of the imagination. 

He hesitates, then peers in the loo mirror and tames the nest that his hair has become over his lazy weekend before he snags his keys from the bowl by the door. One, two, three bouncy steps and he pops into the elevator, the laptop bag full of wires and notes heavy on his left shoulder. 

It’s probably a bad thing that he’s excited.

It’s just...he’s a bit proud, is all.

He’s never filled a character out this fully, never done a character study so deep. Knowing a character’s movements so precisely, his face so completely...It’s, it’s  _ thrilling _ , it’s  _ inspiring _ , it’s- well, it’s right embarrassing, is what it is.

Louis scowls, his smile slipping into the elevator shaft as it shoots down.

At the ding, he strides out, past the doorman and his kind smile, and heads out onto the street, left hand raised to hail a taxi. Any other day Louis would be fine with just walking to the cafe, but with the dark clouds in the sky, it’d be best not to risk the oncoming weather. 

When he gets to the cafe, the rain has just started to fall and Niall is already sitting at a round table against the window, nursing an oversized coffee with both hands. He has a wrinkled manila folder opened in front of him, eyes glassy, focused almost too intensely on what he’s reading. 

Louis decides to give him a minute to finish and walks up to the counter. It’s the same hipster arsehole that’s usually running the till when Louis arrives. The boy looks up and rolls his eyes, muttering a plain, “3 pounds, please,” and nothing else. It’s every bit the emotionless exchange Louis loves. 

He slips into the iron chair at Niall’s table, dropping his bag unceremoniously on the floor and reaching inside to pull out the printed stack of papers that holds all of his, frankly astonishing, potential. When he places the stack on the table and looks up, Niall is looking at him, wide mouth tilted in amusement. 

“What do you have for me, Tommo?”

Louis smiles brightly - the grin he saves for people who matter; the one that thins his lips into nothing and shows off his teeth. It’s much more of a snarl than a smirk, and it has just enough edge to point out that he’s not to be fucked with. 

“It’s an ironic love story,” Louis explains, gently pushing the papers across the table. “It’s about the bitter side of romance; a tale of the ignorant and cluelessly lonely.” 

With an arched brow and a look of mild confusion, Niall looks down and starts reading the paper. 

“It’s not very clean, Louis,” he observes. “It just looks likes notes to me.”

“It is,” Louis clarifies, nodding along. “That’s just the character study. This isn’t going to be a novel, this is going to be  _ literature.  _ This is going to be my legacy.” 

He notes Niall’s look of apprehension. “Louis - ”

“No, listen,” he interrupts. “I know it’s not what I usually do, but - ”

“It’s  _ not _ what you usually do,” Niall agrees. “And while it could be nice to try something fresh, it’s not what the readers are looking for. It’s not what they’re expecting.” 

He knows this. Louis  _ knows  _ this. It’s new, it’s different, it’s unexpected. “But that’s why it works,” he insists. “It’s a twist on an otherwise overdone genre. Nobody cares about happily ever after anymore, Niall. They want pain because pain is  _ real _ \- ”

“And love isn’t?”

Louis scoffs. “I’ve devoted my life, my  _ livelihood _ , to love and it’s done nothing but bite me in the arse.”

“And pay for your lifestyle.”

“But that wasn’t love. That was the readers.” The idiots, the morons, the hopeless romantics that waste their every penny on just a glimpse into impossible expectations they stupidly expect will one day be fulfilled.

The corner of Niall’s mouth is turned down. He still has the standard look of professional glee, of progress, but now he feels stern, giving off the air of humorless disappointment. “But was it not their love of stories that brought them to you.” 

“Any dolt with ten dollars can buy my book. Love has nothing to do with it.”

It’s silent; Louis’ mocking smile and Niall’s sorrow-filled eyes meeting across the table. There aren’t any other customers in the cafe, and all of the employees are in the back of the shop. The room around them settles into dead air and has Niall shaking his head in disbelief. 

“I don’t know what happened to you, Tommo,” he sighs eventually, running the back of his left hand over the paper stack. “You used to be the joy that went into your stories. You used to have a light in that heart of yours. And now it’s burning out, and it feels like the only thing that’s keeping your work alive is spite.”

Louis laughs. “Are you sure you’re not the writer here, old Nialler?”

“Shut it,” Niall chuckles, but it sounds flat. Dead. “I’m just a bit disarmed by all your cynicism lately. Nevertheless, I’m willing to give this a shot - ”

“Yes,” Louis interrupts, breathing a sigh of sweet relief. 

“- because it’s clear that this story is something you believe in. I haven’t seen you this enthusiastic to write in far too long.” 

Niall takes a break to look behind Louis’ smile. Before he can turn around, a mug is being placed on the table. He mutters a soft “thanks” before looking back to Niall, who’s reading the character study with a sour twist to his lips. 

Louis watches as he skims through a few pages, occasionally sparing a glance to Louis, usually accompanied with pity or dejection or some other expression that conveys plainly how unhappy he was with the biting words and acidic observations. 

Suddenly, Niall sits up, and Louis holds his breath.

“I’m going to give you a chance,” he eventually says, making Louis’ breathe coming out in a sudden flood of palpable relief. “I’m not sure I agree with where you're going with this, and I don’t even want to know who filled you with this much abject hatred, but I love the contrast and the caricature, and I want to see what can happen with this book.” Niall stands and grabs his red coat off the back of the chair. “I want 100 pages emailed to me next Tuesday at noon, are we clear?”

“Sure thing, boss,” Louis says, through the beam he isn’t quite able to tame. 

“Good.” Niall grabs his coffee from the table and opens the door just slightly. “Good luck, Tommo,” he breaths, and then he’s out in the chilly British wind, taking the powerful air of influence with him into the newly rain-soaked streets of London. 

 

*****

 

Louis stays at the cafe for longer than he probably should, given he’s still only bought a coffee without any of the frills. He slips his laptop out of his bag and stares pointedly at his ream of spiteful adjectives where it still sits on the round, glossy table. After what seems like a decade of frenetic flipping, he focuses on what observations are important to the story, and which ones he can put aside for later.

People. People drive a story. He lets the breath he didn’t know he was holding slip through his thinned lips and looks at the notes he has of Harry interacting with customers and friends; the way his words are  _ too _ kind, almost insincere, his clumsy gait when he rushes, legs tangling into each other like branches in an overgrown forest. He reads pointedly over every note he’s ever taken, some of them more than once, and tries to mold them into enough for an introduction, a prologue to the storyline he’s not even quite found yet. 

The words come together slowly. Painfully so. But the consistency of character is there. There are small pieces that he wrote on his first day meeting Harry that mesh so well with interactions he’s seen in the past few days. Idiosyncrasies that stay stagnant and unyielding through every visit, no matter how frequently they show up in columns of frantically jotted notes. A smile that’s always too big, hair that’s never quite tamed, shirts that cut too far down his sculpted chest to be professional.

Louis’ about halfway through his stack, sorting the pages into vaguely defined categories, when a damp draft blows past his table, forcing a stack of napkins from something Niall must’ve been eating to scatter across the floor. He glances up and sees Harry, drenched in rainwater, wearing nothing but a rag-thin corduroy jacket, sliding through the glass door. 

It takes less than thirty seconds for Louis to snap his laptop closed, pack up his pens, highlighters, and paper clips, tuck his paper coffee cup beneath his armpit, and follow Harry towards an empty table. It’s a bizarre combination of hatred and egocentrism that has him standing there silently, waiting for Harry to speak first; to notice him and take action. 

It takes longer than expected. Harry steadfastly refuses to acknowledge Louis, buzzing around him like he’s nothing more that a part of the architecture, a fixture or piece of furniture, while he gets ready for his shift. He avoids a conversation as easily as his practiced hands can frost a cake. 

Is Harry really so easy to alienate?

Louis’ persistent presence must be getting hard to ignore - or Harry’s shift may be starting soon - because Harry finally looks up and grunts. “What do you want, Mr. Tomlinson?” 

And, okay, Louis is a talented and independent lad. He’s clever and witty and self-sufficient. And so what if he went through his observations, his impressions, time and time again, and no words he strung together made a story worthy enough for a character as naive as Harry? As impressionable as Harry? As infuriatingly, impossibly attractive as Harry?

So what?

Well, he needed help, was what.  

“I need your help.” 

That was easier than he thought it would be.

“Help with what?” Harry laughs dryly, dropping his apron over his head. “Yelling at the elderly and disabled? I think you’re doing just fine all on your own.”

Louis watches while Harry nimbly ties the emerald green straps of his cotton apron. “I’m having trouble writing lately, and I figured I could use a new look on love.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in love,” he insists, with a roll of his bright eyes. “I thought you found that ‘ _ drivel _ ’ immature and pointless.”

Louis, being the pouty (clever, independent, talented) child that he is, just drops “Convince me then.”

“Convince you?” 

“That love is real.” 

Harry blinks, his hands coming to rest motionlessly at his side. Louis continues, “Convince me that you’re right. That love isn’t just something lonely, gullible people created to make life just a little bit more bearable.”

Harry laughs. It’s full-throated, deep and heavy, honey as it rings through Louis’ ears. He shakes out his head of damp curls as he twists his hair up into a messy bun. “We’re gonna need a while.”

“Should I get another coffee?”

With a glance at Louis shaking his near-empty paper cup with a smirk and a wink, Harry sighs grandly, a grin touching his pouty lips. 

“You’re going to need a lot more than that.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Find us on Tumblr:  
> [Ryan](http://wingsjade.tumblr.com) | [Ally](http://louisthetinycat.tumblr.com)


End file.
